Hair drying caps are generally known. The simplest hair drying device is a towel wrapped around the head. A close variant of that can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,308, which describes an after shower hat that is fabricated from a towel-like material. A rectangular piece of the material is folded in half. The open sides are sewn forming first and second seams, and elastic is sewn around the opening to provide a snug fit. The seams are also provided with a stiffening material, whereby when the hat is worn with the seams at the front and back of the head, the stiffening material in the walls causes the hat to stand relatively straight out from the wearer's head. This permits the hair to dry within the confines of the enclosed space without flattening. Another close variant can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,613, which describes a hair drying turban made from a single piece of absorbent cloth and having a cap portion and, extending forwardly, a hair basket portion. In use, the wearer places the cap portion on his or her hair with the hair extending forwardly over the forehead and face. Then, with the hair placed neatly within the hair basket portion, the hair basket is twisted about the longitudinal axis of the hair. The hair basket portion is then folded backwardly along the center line of the cap portion and secured to the back of the cap portion. A loop is provided to facilitate the tucking in of the hair basket portion beneath the cap portion.
A number of hair drying caps incorporate an absorbing or desiccating material sandwiched between layers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,595 describes a hair drying cap that rapidly absorbs moisture from the hair of the wearer by use of multiple layers of a unique absorbent material that draws the moisture from the hair into the multiplicity of randomly arranged fibers of which the material is made. The randomly arranged fibers are disposed between the inside layer and the outside layer of at least sections of a cap.
Caps used for athletic endeavors are also generally known. U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,756 describes a hair tie having an elongated tubular hair sleeve constructed from a flexible material for encompassing hair of a user. The elongated tube is in the form of a sheet hanging down from a cap, said sheet having securement mechanisms (ties) situated along a length of the sleeve to form the sheet into a bundle about the wearer's hair. The wearer's hair is contained within the elongated tube which extends downward from the back of the cap.
All of the above suffer from a number of deficiencies. First, they all enclose the hair, preventing air from circulating about the hair. Second, the enclosing drying fabrics flatten the hair, or allow the hair to merely sit inside a tent-like enclosure, without any possibility of shaping the hair. Third, the look of any of the above will discourage a user from wearing the same in public. This invention resolves all these problems.